Friday, August 17, 2007

Last week Q had the sniffles. At about the same time, I was noticing that again he was startling when laid on his back, startling at nap times. Then he began to startle as he was nursing in the evening, at what would ordinarily be bedtime. He was more easily awakened, sleeping less, which in turn makes him more sensitive to noise in general and just plain unable to handle surprise of any kind. His naps shrunk, sometimes to nothing. He started staying up 'til one, then two, then getting up at six, then staying up 'til three .

Monday morning, Q's luverly OT was busy with a class, so thankfully we didn't have to get up and try to be bright on four hours of sleep. That morning I called the neuro office. The neuro guy is out for the week, but his on call person recommended that I double the dose of Clonazepam. Yeah. So that's what I did, all the while hoping, praying that it would work. All the while feeling like I'm poisoning my poor, defenseless baby.

It worked.

He's been more sleepy, even during the day. But he's not catatonic, hallelujah. He still wakes up to nurse a couple of times during the night, so the new dose hasn't even thumped him that hard. He's still startling at nap times, so we'll see if he ends up with a higher dose for the morning as well.

Having now lived a couple of my worst fears, and survived, thank you very much, nothing is so capable of flattening me as my babies' vulnerabilities. Yesterday we had a picnic with friends and while the boys were chasing each other like motivated stumbly puppies, two of them hit the ground, hard. When the first hit, all the mamas gasped at the force. It sounded like he'd splatted his head on the edge of the cement slab. Thankfully, it was just all his gangly boy limbs slamming into the dirt next to the concrete. His head didn't even make contact. Later, his brother, running in almost the same place, skidded on the dirt and gravel as he tried to stop, and ended up with a 3' x 4' abrasion just above his ankle. Again, we'd thought it would be worse. Still, we all had to breathe deeply and slurp some water before we could come off the proverbial ceiling. Waaay too much adrenaline for a nice day out by a lake. We were all a little stunned and shaky--and these aren't even my kids, though sometimes it feels like they are. Hee. It's ever so much worse when it's one's offspring, isn't it? You can practically feel your life expectancy shrinking as the whole scene unfolds, slo-mo.

So, yeah. Q's meds are working again. He's sleeping again. And I don't feel like a bad mommy for giving them to him.

School's on here. Wheee!!! We're easing back in--they're not all that excited about getting in their quality time with math. Heh. They'd much rather be reading or playing fairy or checking the chickens for eggs. Yesterday, G spotted three red-headed woodpeckers in the front yard, all at once. Three!

Speaking of G, I have to share a kid funny: A few weeks ago, he'd been in the living room trying to tell the girls a joke. It was way over their heads, so he made it even worse by applying pre-teen boy logic to it, twisting some of the words up, stirring in some Spoonerisms. Just for fun. When they were clearly more puzzled than ever, he whirled himself around, headed into the kitchen, fairly skipping with glee, and, hopping up and down, exclaimed, "Ahh... Delicious irony!"

I ducked my head under the table so I wouldn't laugh, you know, in his face. The girls are still pretty much clueless about the whole thing. Maaan. This stuff is my favorite part.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the little girls with me while the oldest two were in piano lessons. I was sitting in the passenger seat of the van, S in the driver's seat, K at my elbow, standing in the open door. Q was playing with toys in his carseat so I could do some grammar review with the girls. We were going over pronouns: my, mine, our, ours. We said the list several times together and then were quiet while K was writing the words on her pronoun list. A second passed and I heard this little voice say "ours". I, in my sleepy haze, turned to S to tell her what a good job she'd done when I realized that it hadn't been her voice. I was blinking, trying to figure out what had just happened. Surely not... "S, did you say 'ours'?" She's coloring, and doesn't even look up. "No, mama, that was Q."

WHAT???

It was. It was. It was!!!

In the last couple of weeks, he's started "giving kisses." He makes smacky noises with his lips--a huge skill. He gets very excited and giggly when I hear and I ask him if he wants kisses. When being nuzzled by a certain auntie, he starts kicking like mad until he can get that motor planning thing organized enough to burst out with -- kisses! And then he's so pleased with himself. He gets cranky if Grandpa ends their time at the piano too soon. He gets wound up if anyone mentions b-a-t-h. A couple of times, he's responded the same way to the word w-a-t-e-r. So yes, we spell those words now. Funny, isn't it? He's part fish, just like his sibs and his daddy.

It's so sweet to be able to just marinate happily in the good stuff, ya know? It's much easier to do so when one's had some serious sleep, she notes wryly. Even with the chaotic, smashed to smithereens broken parts, life is good here. I am blessed.

First time here?

Me

I'm mothering five gorgeous, perfect children, and homeschooling three of them. I am one of the best-blessed mamas in the universe. Oh and -- there's the small matter of neuro issues here. I suspect that somehow the littlest one's Special Needs behave as some sort of condenser that delivers unusual configurations of Rainbows, Butterflies and Bliss, right in the midst of the ubiquitous and itinerant crazy bits. So we have some stories to tell.